I was offered an opportunity today to earn a little extra income each month doing something I love to do, and have been doing for free right here for some time–I was offered a position as a paid blogger. I haven’t decided whether or not to accept yet, just because it requires a certain level of time commitment that I’m not sure I have right now, so I’m going to wait until the decision is made either way to post details about where the offer comes from. I can say that either way I’ll still be maintaining and adding to this blog at the same level of frequency.
The reason this offer inspired me to write a quick posting that I do want to share with you today though, is because it reminded me of something I grew up listening to my Grandfather tell me over and over. He used to say “what you believe about yourself, it will come true.”
Let me be clear that I’m not one who puts much stock in grand concepts like “positive thinking” or other self-help / self-empowering notions. In fact, somebody sent me that book, The Secret, which is supposed to be all about how just thinking something is reality will make it so. I never even opened the cover and am using it right now to level a file cabinet in my office.
What I do believe is that we all make our own paths in life. And along the way, we set ourselves up to either succeed or fail before everything we attempt by the level of self-confidence or self-doubt we have in ourselves. Which is basically what my Grandfather was saying, that what we believe about ourselves will come true because we subconsciously guide ourselves to make it true with our own confidence or doubts.
I thought about this when I received the offer today, because I’ve long wanted to expand into paid blogging. Even though this particular blog is relatively new, I’ve actually maintained a blog for the past couple of years and always thought it would be great to be offered a salary (even a small one) for blogging.
Mind you, even though I try my best to write informative and engaging pieces, I’m by no means a trained or highly skilled writer (that’s probably evident if you’ve read this far). And I realize that good writing is an art form, so not being overly skilled or educated in writing greatly reduced my chances of anyone ever actually being willing to pay me to write for them.
But that didn’t stop me from continuing to write on my own blogs, hopefully improving my abilities along the way; and it didn’t prevent me from throwing my name in the hat for opportunities as I’ve heard about them.
You see, while I fully accept that I’m not a literary genius, I’ve believed that I have knowledge and experiences worth sharing and at least an average ability to do so in a somewhat entertaining manner.
And whether or not I accept the offer, what’s more important and worth remembering for you–is that what I’ve believed about myself, it has come true as of the moment I was offered the paid blogging gig today.
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First congrats on the job offer. I think you should take it, I mean how can you turn down getting paid to blog?
I know this question isn’t really the topic but I was wondering if you think all self help sources are pointless or if there are any you think are good for people?
Thank you Kari. Let me be very clear, I don’t think anything that helps you or someone else is pointless by any means. I didn’t mean to imply that I look down upon self-help techniques or resources in any way.
I simply meant that by-and-large they aren’t my cup of tea. I don’t need help getting or staying motivated, nor encouragement from someone who doesn’t know me but just happened to write a ‘feel good about yourself’ book.
If these are helpful to you, then I certainly think you should use them. We’re all very different in our goals and needs, and each have to find what helps us keep moving forward in work and in life on our own.